Are government agencies exaggerating the size of this year's global grain crop and are multinationals influencing the figures in order to move the market one way, then the other?
It's a hell of a suggestion, but one that was put to me this week in the form of an email from a Herefordshire farmer, disillusioned with the grain market and harbouring a deep-rooted scepticism.
In a slightly abridged version, his email read as follows: "I've been speaking to a combine driver who has just returned from Oklahoma. He reported dire yields across thousands of acres due to a four-day frost earlier in the year. He said that thousands of acres had not been cut at all because there was not a single grain in them. Yields were at best 25% of last year. I gather that all farmers there have frost insurance, but I wondered how this had not been reported elsewhere.
"I have long speculated about Cargill and others manipulating figures to their own ends. Given the effect that the "discovery" of extra wheat area in the USA had on world prices a couple of months ago, presumably the reverse could be true. The suspicion that the USDA is supplied its information by Cargill et al only adds to the mistrust."
Of course these claims got my journalistic nose twitching, so I contacted two respected analysts I know - Terry Francl at the American Farm Bureau and Dan Basse of Chicago-based AgResource......
Not surprisingly, they did not entirely share the Herefordshire farmer's interpretation. They both confirmed that there had been frost damage in the Oklahoma/Texas area last winter and spring, but insisted that this had been widely reported at the time.
"By the mid-point of harvest in June, these crop losses were largely known, and were more than offset by yield gains in Kansas and states further north," said Mr Basse.
Mr Francl also confirmed that the USA had had a "pretty good wheat crop this year" and the stocks to use ratio had increased from 29% in 2008/09 to 38% in 2009/10.
He did not believe that the USDA's figures were in any way distorted, pointing out that the International Grains Council's figures were almost exactly in line, as were most private analysts'.
"So I don't believe you can blame Cargill or others for the current decline in prices. It's probably a fair reflection of the supply/demand situation both domestically and worldwide," he told me.
Mr Basse concurred. "Cargill or any other commercial is not to blame. That rhetoric used to occur in the USA about 20 years ago. Now we blame the funds and big investors for market movements. Unfortunately we have to find someone to blame!"
Mr Basse went on to explain that the current low prices were due to sluggish US export demand, large North African wheat crops and the trade row between Egypt and Russia over grain quality. "The world is now over-supplied with wheat and the recent sharp fall in the Ukrainian currency has caused this key seller to be more aggressive."
All pretty convincing stuff, I reckon. It seems to me highly plausible that, in a country the size of the USA, a serious cropping problem in one state is not going to have much impact on the rest.
But there is nothing wrong with a little scepticism, as shown by the Herefordshire farmer. It chimes with another email I received this week, this time from a dairy analyst in the USA. I couldn't help but chuckle at his "sign off" which read "a wise man is always in doubt".
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A hard freeze hit Oklahoma wheat April 7th, and was widely reported at the time. (see http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/kansas-wheat-improving-oklahoma-beyond.html). Although your farmer is probably right to question some of the USDA's figures, it is bizarre to suggest that they would be 'fed' them by 'Cargill et al'. They are perfectly capable of putting out incompetent rubbish without any outside help!